What is wrong with us?

There is a sixteen-year old girl suffering agonisingly in the burn unit of the Kenyatta National Hospital. She has suffered at the hands of her "husband", a "husband" decreed for her by her grandfather while her parents stood by. Her "husband", grandfather, and parents, are free. The newsmen, such as they are, have asked some of the questions; they have studiously refused to ask the right questions.

Even in Mandera, that bit where Kenyans die unmourned, there is a National Police Service post, an Office of the President representative, and an intelligence officer of the National Intelligence Service. That girl must have attended school at one point somewhere in Mandera. That girl must have received treatment at one time at a hospital or health centre in Mandera. That girl must have visited a market at one time in Mandera. She was not invisible until the day her grandfather gave her to a monster. She was not invisible until the day that monster set her on fire. She was not invisible until the day her plight was highlighted on social media and Kenya's fearless free pressmen decided to get in on the action.

Harder questions will certainly not be forthcoming. I am not confident that Kenya's free pressmen will demand answers from the Inspector-General of Police, whose ineptitude seems to grow as more and more Kenyans are murdered in violent encounters. I am not confident that they will cashier the Director of Public Prosecutions whose leaden-footed responses to crises no longer surprises. Even if he is not going to pontificate in front of a gaggle of press microphones, why hasn't he ordered, as he has the power to do, the Inspector-General to investigate the attempted murder of this girl?

These people - the pressmen, the police, the public prosecutors, everyone - is more interested in the return of Baba Yao to the National Assembly, the up-today-down-tomorrow fortunes of the Deputy President, the salacious details of an wedding engagement on the peaks of Mount Kenya...anything but why a girl was robbed of everything she had and almost robbed of her life. Not even FIDA and COVAW have roused themselves to hold the Inspector-General of Police or the Director of Public Prosecutions to account. What is wrong with these people?

We seem proud of the achievements of this nation over the past decade and a half in the economy, free basic education, public infrastructure, mobile telephony, literature, regional peace initiatives, war, athletics and innovation. We have ignored the fact that when it comes to civil liberties, especially in relation to children, girls and vulnerable people, we have been an abject failure. The same callous police service that stands idly by as "suspected terrorists" are gunned down in the streets cannot be expected to investigated the forceful abduction and sexual enslavement of a sixteen year old girl from a cagey, secretive community that distrusts the State and its institutions, even when the abduction and slavery ends in tragedy. We will wring our hands in despair. And we will do nothing because, well, the economy!